The Ashanti Regional Police Command has encouraged residents of Kumasi to step up and report any case of brutality by personnel of the service deployed to enforce the government’s 14-day partial lockdown in some parts of the country to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Since the two-week lockdown commenced on Monday, 30 March 2020, there have been several reports of assault of civilians by the joint police and military taskforce enforcing the lockdown.
The Ghana Armed Forces has, however, dissociated itself from such brutalities.
Residents in Kumasi have complained that the police have not been kind.
Reacting to this development, the Ashanti Regional Police Public Relations Officer ASP Godwin Ahianyo has assured that all reported cases of brutalities will be dealt with.
He told Class News that: “We’ve a desk and the Inspector General of Police indicated that all cases must be investigated, those ones against officers who have misconducted themselves and those ones against the general public who flout the regulations.”
ASP Ahianyo added that to avoid prank calls, the police want victims to appear physically before them to report cases of abuse.
“Some pictures I’ve seen on social media, there are marks of assault which is very obvious, those ones when you come we know [what to do]…so we want anybody at all who has fallen victim to these unfortunate police-military brutality to come to the police command and then lodge a complaint and we assure them that we are gong to investigate all those cases,” he added.